Attorney General Lynn Fitch filed a brief in the Fifth Circuit of Appeals urging the Court to vacate the preliminary injunction rulinggranted in July, which blocked HB 1126, the Walker Montgomery Protecting Children Online Act, passed without a single "no" vote from theLegislature, from taking effect.
"I will continue to fight for this commonsense law because our children’smental health, physical security, and innocence should not take a back seat toBig Tech profits,” said Attorney General Lynn Fitch. "These platformspose a serious risk to our children and their futures depend on our willingnessto protect them in this digital era."The brief explains, "The [Walker Montgomery Protecting Children Online] Actrequires covered platforms to take 'commercially reasonable' actions to verify auser’s age, to obtain parental consent for child users, and to adopt a strategy tomitigate the harms to children inflicted on those platforms—sex trafficking,sexual abuse, child pornography, targeted harassment, sextortion, incitementto suicide, and more. The Act requires what any responsible covered platformwould already do: make 'commercially reasonable' efforts to protect minors—not perfect, state-of-the-art, cost-prohibitive, or even effective efforts, butefforts reflecting a bare minimum of reasonable care in light of the platform’sresources."This complaint was originally filed by NetChoice, a group representing billion-dollar social-media companies, such as Google and Meta, that routinely sue tohalt States’ efforts to protect children from online predators.HB 1126 requires that social media companies develop strategies to preventchildren from harmful materials online, like grooming by predators, promotionof self-harm and eating disorders, stalking and bullying, and glorification ofdrug abuse. It is named for a Starkville teen, Walker Montgomery, whotragically lost his life after becoming a victim of a social media sextortion scam.
Attorney General Fitch has been a leading voice for children's online safety.Earlier this year, AG Fitch announced that her legislative priorities wouldinclude HB 1126.
Original source can be found here.